A Good test engineer has basically a \'test to break\' attitude, An ability to take the point of view of the customer, a strong desire for quality, and an attention to detail.

Tact and diplomacy are useful in maintaining a cooperative relationship with developers, and an ability to communicate with both technical developers and non technical customers, management people is useful.

Previous software development experience can be helpful as it provides a deeper understanding of the software development process, gives the tester an appreciation for the developers\' point of view, and reduce the learning curve in automated test tool programming.

Judgment skills are needed to assess high risk areas of an application on which to focus testing efforts when time is limited.